On 5th March, the French conceptual artist Yann Kersalé will visit the iGuzzini Auditorium in Recanati as a guest speaker, outlining his 40-year experience in redesigning architecture and landscapes through the use of light.

Having graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts of Quimper, in Bretagne, Yann Kersalé immediately stands out through his peculiar approach to lighting design.
Since the foundation of his design studio based in Vincennes, in 1983, light is the fundamental tool in Kersalé’s artistic research, the same as night-time is when he tests his experiments. Playing with rules and conventions, Yann redesigns places by technically and aesthetically reinterpreting them. Sociology, history, geography and architecture are the substrate of his storytelling, which is made up of illusions of light set in urban contexts, on natural geo-poetic paths or incorporated into singular artistic installations. Some of the artist’s numerous outstanding projects are: la mise en lumière of Lyon Opéra, the Tour Agbar in Barcelona, the Sony Centre of Potsdamer Platz, in Berlin, the gardens of the Musée du Quai Brainly in Paris, the Docks de Paris, the Vieux Port and the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM) in Marseille, Miroir de mer in Sydney, La Valeur des Blancs in Doha and Place de la République in Paris. Villa Medici in Rome, located at the highest point of the city and home to the French Academy in Rome since 1803, is among the projects currently under construction.

Yann Kersalé has been a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres since 1999.

The public conference featuring Yann Kersalé is part of LightOn, a conference series conceived and developed in 2015 by iGuzzini and the MAXXI Architecture museum in Rome. The three-year initiative involves well-known architects from all over the world taking part in a series of lectures aimed at sharing their vision on design, technology and light. iGuzzini’s headquarters in Recanati and the MAXXI museum in Rome turn into stages where great contemporary designers come to share the approaches and contexts defining their professional careers, particularly in terms of lighting. The guests featured so far are Kjetil Traedel Thorsen (Snøhetta, Oslo-New York), Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow Wow, Tokyo), Sergei Tchoban (Tchoban Voss Architekten, Berlin), Winy Maas (MVRDV, Rotterdam), David Adjaye (Adjaye Associates, London-New York), Louisa Hutton (Sauerbruch Hutton, London-Berlin), Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA, Tokyo), Peter Eisenman (Eisenman Architects, New York) and Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang, Chicago-New York).

Architects enrolled in the Macerata Professional Order gain 2 CFP credits for attending. A certificate of attendance can be issued upon request to attendees belonging to other Territorial Orders. The student attendees from the School of Architecture and Design in Ascoli Piceno and those from the University of Camerino receive 1 CFU credit per Light-On talk attended. Students taking the Architecture Engineering Undergraduate Course at the Marche Polytechnic University also gain credits for attending – these are granted in line with the terms and conditions of their course.